Woe is for Though who Hast Spurned thy Gods
by DaemonWelsh
Summary: My second fic. Set in rapture, but will be moving to various locations. Come in and read, review if you have a whim, and enjoy yourself. AU, rating to go up later as more content is added.
1. Darien

(( AU(Bioshock)(I do not own anything but the various characters used. If I use a character from a different game/book/movie/story/etc… I will note it in the chapter. I will not be updating frequently, and my updates will be sporadic, often with many months between, or just a few minutes. Refrences to other things that I do not specify in the notes above the chapter, I would ask for a PM to be sent to me noting the line and a link for whatever that item came from. Btw, I enjoy flames, as I will often print them out, and leave them at school for the various people there to laugh at. I do enjoy laughing at them, but I want real revies, not just "YOU SUCK MY (turd/left nut/right nut/cat/etc) WRITES BETTER THAN THAT" or things similar. Please, if you think my story sucks, or I suck, then please include details as to how I could change that, possible things I could do to my story, content you want to see in my story, etc. (sorry no porn))))

Darien stared out at the city. He stared at the glowing lights, the neon signs, the trams and railways leading from building to building. It was the city that was home… Rapture. Darien remembered everything with crystal clarity, the civil war, ADAM, the splicers, and Ryan… The man who was responsible for life beneath the sea, and Darien's current situation. Darien had been hired by Ryan to do scientific research, and his field was genetics. While the other geneticists had done research into "plasmids" and "ADAM", Darien worked on a virus. The virus which he had planned split the genetic code, modified it, recorded what it did, and then set up a residence, where it would continue monitoring, changing, manipulating, and defending its host. In its early forms, the virus made random changes (100% lethal). When Civil war had broke out, and Rapture went insane, Darien just shut his labs, locked them down, set security, and kept working. It took him many years to perfect it, all the while testing it on splicers that came too close. Darien was old, nearly 70 when he perfected it, and he called it the "Descolidia Virus" after a virus which it was based upon. When he tried it on his most recent subject, a female splicer, he met with a surprisingly amazing result. Not only did she live, with the plasmids now incorporated into her code cleanly, but she regained her sanity and her former looks. When she was let into one of the labs where he examined her, he found that though she was 80 years, she now looked only twenty. She told him her name, mere seconds before he incinerated everything in the chamber which she resided.

Cadence was dead.

Darien injected himself with the virus, before releasing an agent that turned it into a blood-to-blood-only delivery. He stood in front of a mirror watching as his skin tightened, his body filled out, his mind grew more alert, his eyesight sharpened, his smell and hearing more acute, and his muscles strengthened. He laughed with the voice of an 18 year old man, in his prime, and with the world ahead of him. Taking blood samples for later study, he stared at his collection of plasmids, ranging from lighting to intelligence. Darien knew about the effects of plasmids when injected with more than 2 at once, yet he believed this virus could change that. He placed a trap in one of his labs, opened a pathway that would allow the next splicer to enter, and set a recording of a little sister who had just lost her guardian Big Daddy to play. He didn't have to wait long, as a small band of splicers came to investigate the promise of ADAM. After locking down the labs they were in, he loosed a sleeper agent, and sent in a robot to move them to separate labs. After that was done, he locked those labs, turned off the recording, and let loose a mini virus that exhausted itself after a minute, and killed both itself and those it infected. The group of splicers that had stopped outside the entrance was killed in a relatively quick and painless manner.

Inside the labs, the various splicers began waking, and so he recorded everything that happened to them. They began screaming for their various families, for ADAM, for their various comforts in Rapture, and just plain screaming. When he loosed the D-virus they screamed louder. When he loosed the pathogen that he used for himself, they screamed even louder. It was a course of 2 weeks that the Descolidia had finally managed to quell the cries of the last splicer, and now all were back to their former selves. At this point Darien turned on the screens that were installed in each lab, and initiated a 13-way conference between them. It took two full days to reiterate what he had done, what he planned to do, and what was going to happen to the people. By the end of those two day, each person had accepted what he told them, and were now working with him in his lab. They were named: Tammy, Rose, Courtney, Andrew, Sydney, Miriam, Maggie, Jerome, Brian, Kevin, Tom, and Eric.


	2. Ryan has been replaced

Darien watched the screen as his minions scoured the city for equipment, ADAM, EVE, and "test Subjects." Each day they would bring in a group of people, hit em with the virus, and then stick them in isolation chambers. One after the other would change, from splicer, to human. Each and everyone single one was measured, examined, tested upon, and then all genetic Data was removed, and they were shot into the ocean, completely devoid of the Descolidia virus, and all bodily fluids. Empty corpses. All their data was entered into Darien's computer, and saved, with personal profiles on each person. Several cargo bays for cloning were set up, so that if he needed to, Darien could resurrect any of raptures people, with everything they knew. He included samples of his own DNA so that if he were to die, he could be resurrected as a younger self, with everything he knew. Darien's people were included into this database.

As Darien's people collected things, they also set up computerized systems, so that all the systems on Rapture were automated. Hephatitusis core was set up to upkeep itself, and the Gardens were also set up as self maintaining. Food was collected and grown; the fish were farmed with other life support systems, and Rapture was slowly turning into a ghost town. The Big Daddies were also captured, though it was generally with remote systems doing so, and were kept alive, and well down in Deck C. The little sisters were healed of the parasite, and were busy growing up, keeping several of Darien's people busy tending to them.

Time went on

The world changed

Years passed

The galaxy was explored

The Covenant attacked

Time passed again

The War of the Covenant ended

Master Chief disappeared

And In all of that, Rapture was forgotten, and Darien kept advancing his tech, medical knowledge, machinery, and rapture itself grew to encompass its world. The people of Rapture were machines with some of the most advanced computer minds. The tech on Rapture rivaled that of the Forerunners, and was more compact. Rebellion was never an issue, as the humans living on rapture still had to breath, and anyone that tried was gassed, drained, killed, ejected, and then cloned.


	3. A falling star

A star appeared in the sky, a flaming piece of falling debris. It careened into the water, sending shockwaves into the water below, crushing underwater formations, and towering… skyscrapers? Cortana scanned the ocean, with deep sensors, not the sensors that she used to scan, the kind that you used to detect where the Spartans were training from space back on Reach. She "saw" what appeared to be an entire world covered in cities. She looked around, and found an area where _forward unto dawn _could fit in its entirety, and have room for about 20 other ships. She guided the ship with what power she had left, hoping to be able to save master chief, whose pod had run out of electricity hundreds of years ago. Cortana thought she was rampant, but couldn't understand why she was not different in any way. She hit the floor of the bay, and reset the distress signal. Almost immediately a swarm of robots swarmed the ship, dismantling it, and rebuilding it. A couple of people walked towards the ships, their hands were… glowing? They leapt into the air, and landed at the escape pods. She opened the doors, and water flowed out and washed off a couple of them. They hit the ground and bounced, leaping back up to enter the ship.

Cortana created ghost images on the ship, in case they had any electronic devices, and watched with growing frustration, as they ignored all ghosts and went to the control room, where she was hiding. She locked down the doors, and set about getting the power back on in this room. The holo-pads were lighting up, and showing pictures of Halo, the covenant, Reach, Earth, and the Master Chief. Some also showed little clips of Civilian life, the joys and sorrows played by the people of Earth over a millennium ago. Cortana did the best she could to protect her system, but found that there was a small… parasite? Attached to her coding. It made her "skin" crawl, though she realized that was probably saving her from rampancy.

This one is sealed.

Shock it, pop it open, hack it for all I care, but open it. Its obviously sealed for a reason, and whatever is in there could be something we can use.

Alright stand back, I am shocking it…

NOO don't! Hack it instead, there might be some computer systems in there we could use…

Fine.

*sounds of beeps and clicks, cursing and bashing the wall, a kick and the door opens*

*breathing is heard*

What is this? Some sort of Time Capsule?

It's… Beautiful!

Watch it, it could be dangerous.

Ya, ok C. I AM IN HEAVEN!

Cortana watched the three Humans from her sensors, and then one of them walked over to a control panel and started to hack into it. HACK into something that SHE had written and was now controlling! She watched as he tried to write a program that would open it, and she deleted that a second before it activated. He swore several times punched the door a couple of times kicked it once, and then hotwired it to open. Nothing she could do against hotwiring. She watched the door open, and several humans stood there as she played clip after clip. Occasionally a small sigh was heard, but other than that and the holograms, the people were silent. As Cortina's final clip came to a close, she activated her pedestal, which showed her to the people. "I am Cortana, and I need your help."


	4. The Golden Age

Help me please

Location: Utopia

Time: 4,000 years after the day of discovery of the first Halo.

Era: The Era of the deathless people.

"I need your help"

Startled the three just stared at the AI. Slowly Andrew opened his mouth, and it took him a full minute to find his voice, something he hadn't used since… ever. He finally got the words out, "what do you need?"

The AI replied, "I have a friend in cryo, could you take me to see him? And if you can, do you think you can revive him?"

Instead of replying, he walked up and touched the pedestal and a small light engulfed his hand. A chip appeared, and he stepped out, not noticing the small mass of flesh, the size of a flea falling onto the floor.

They watched as Cortana continued to try to revive the Master Chief, but every attempt failed. When they attempted to clone him, all they had was a mummified corpse. Cortana cried several times, as well as a computer can cry at least, and she was finally able to accept that after 3500 years, you could not be revived.

They were building a body for her, a fully… human…body. She had already updated their knowledge with several of the chemicals used to create the SPARTAN II, and was not the first body to receive the updated augmentations. When her body was finally ready, though it was missing a brain, they began researching a brain that could house her electronics, and prevent her from going into rampancy. When her body and mind were finished, and they had uploaded her into it, they began the work of copying her genetic data and memories into the computer system, so that they would have a version of her ready if she were ever to die. They introduced the Descolidia virus into her system, and then proceeded to insert the other augmentations into her, before killing the virus.

Cortana stood on trembly legs, and felt the air flow over her new body…

The feelings she had now were unrivaled, even in virtual reality. It was more than the hard light projectors on High charity, it was… Life. It teemed all around her, pulsing, glowing, shining, shimmering, and sending her waves of data. That was what most people experienced, she reasoned, this entire being, myself, no wonder they are always too slow to react. They are getting sensory data from everywhere, and not all of it was relevant. Every sound, every touch, every sight, and every taste she savored. These were things that she would never have experienced as an AI. And now she was never going to go rampant.

Cortana pulled the specs on her new body, and found that due to an infinite loop in the structure of the brain, that it was never going to be filled with data, even if it was downloading the entire contents of halo every second, it would never fill. This was hers, and immediately she dumped her memories into it. Her mind was no longer cramped, and rampancy was a thing of the past for her.

: For millennia we have waited:

: For our time to rise:

: And now the clock starts spinning:

: Time begins to fly:

A small, beige creature with a greenish tinge, about the size of a tennis ball crept through the streets of Rapture, eating discarded fruit skins, and often times small rodents or anything on the ground that was made of an organic material. Slowly it crept, from floor to floor, from Hephaestus core to the fishery. When it arrived at the fishery, it made a little hovel out of a small submersible toy, something that could extend its reach deep into the unknown. Deep, among the pipes and scars of Utopia it grew. First, a year passed. Then 5 years. Then a decade. Then a century. Until 116 years passed it remained underwater, feeding and growing like it had only dreamed of for more than a millennia. It began tending to the pipes, those that anchored Rapture to the world, and it grew. Soon, it felt a need to spawn; so many thousands of small fishlike creatures began filling the Oceans. Another century passed. The Oceans swarmed with an ecosystem unlike any other, with all of the creatures, from the tiniest microbe, to the greatest whale, forming one hive. One creature that encompassed a world.

Rapture was to have its second coming.

Cortana readied herself for her next day in the lab. She had been working on so much during her time here; first it was just a couple things, such as trying to find a way to protect Rapture from any firings from Halo. Then it began progressing, until now she fervently worked on fine tuning the ability to "slip" from one spot to the next. She had solved some of the greatest problems in physics, and came to make discoveries that would make Einstein jealous, and those working on the hydrogen bomb jealous. She made a breakthrough that allowed instantaneous transportation from anywhere on Rapture, to anywhere else on Rapture. Her work was the basis of some of the work from other scientists on Rapture. She had finally decided to create a ship to extend this scientific Utopia to the stars. With the unlimited power of Raptures core at her disposal, she had nearly completed a set of two pelican drop ships with forerunner modifications, and crafted a ship the size of the _Pillar of Autumn_. It was based roughly on the honeycombed pattern, and yet it had the transport pads, part of which were linked with Rapture, yet most linked to others on the ship. There were others linked to drop pods, to be used to transport people onto a planet, or from rapture to said planet. In way of armaments, the ship, newly christened _Gods Will, _had minute MAC cannons linked with Plasma turrets, so that when the MAC cannons fired, they were preceded by plasma, as well as covered in it. When it was test fired on a rock of a planet, it had sent its projectile through the planet and out the other side, coring the planet. To say in the least, it was utterly dangerous. The armor of the ship was a mixture of organic material, covenant energy, and hardened metal. It was solid, and self sealing, it also was able to act as a plant, converting Co2 into energy and oxygen. It was tougher than nails, and had a bite to boot. And it was done. This was the last day that it was in processing, where they were checking it over to see if there were any problems. They knew the teleportation grid was online, as the technicians had been coming and going all day. The clone bays were running, and her AI programs were running, so for her, everything was okay. Her body was plugged in, and she was using it primarily for data storage at this point, finding it much easier to patrol the ship as an artificial intelligence, as she was able to inhabit the various drones and machinery. With her expanded consciousness, her fleshy body, it made it extremely easy for her to multi-task, and run the entire ship with nary a conscious thought. In reality, the ship was already in space, orbiting the planet as a moon would. In space there were also several stations where other people would reside, mostly for people who didn't want to be scientists eternally, or who wanted to grow up each and every time they were re-incarnated. These space stations would also allow people to explore the universe in a little more… historic… manner. It was good and all, but Cortana thought it to be too antiquated. She had given them a "dumb" AI, and let them do with it what they wanted, but she remained the only smart AI, and at the exact same time, a SPARTAN II. She had armor, with a wireless port so that at any time she could send herself into it, and control it. She had a miniature shoulder mounted MAC cannon sitting in an escape pod… THE escape pod for the ship to be precise, and her meaty core. She was happy with the way thing were running. And this was not even details; this is just scratching the surface with what was on the ship.

On Rapture

9 of 25 hours in the day.

In the rising pillar, the connection of the air and water, sat Darien, sipping on an Amber liquid, something brewed by Cortana to sate the thirsts of the Commoners.


	5. War over rapture

((Authors note: I have been busy, just got spore, geometry and swimming are both bitches, and I haven't had much time to work on the story. I may start posting pictures of the fleet, planets, and various other parts of this story, so that it is easier for you to see what I'm seeing, many of these pictures are probably going to be made in spore. :) The website where I am posting these things is daemonwelsh`deviantart`com replace ` with a period (.) .I have a basic storyline planned out and will probably be splitting this fiction into two separate storylines. One of which is going to detail Cortona's story, and the other that of the Floods. I am going to have to ask you to be patient while I'm doing this, as I don't have very much time to do anything now.

Reviews are welcomed.

If you want to see something in this story, such as an X-wing, or a shadow cat, then post it in a comment, or PM it to me, and tell me a little bit of how you want that incorporated.

I will often post a preview, or part of the story I'm working on, and ask for critique, and if so, ill put at the top **PREVIEW **

It will probably seem really slow, or really fast, but that is probably my writing style. Still haven't picked one I like, so until then

If you want to say something, just say it. I promise that I will read over what you say carefully, and if you ask for a reply, ill do my best to give it. Just remember, I don't do this for money, I do this for your enjoyment… and that's pretty much it.

Chow))

On Rapture

9 of 25 hours in the day.

In the rising pillar, the connection of the air and water, sat Darien, sipping on an Amber liquid, something brewed by Cortana to sate the thirsts of the Commoners. It held a fiery taste, and was something she called Brandy…

He watched as his world moved from the waters of Utopia, and began to rise into the sky of the Milky Way. Somehow it felt glorious… more glorious than it normally should, something that began to make Darien nervous. In someone like Darien, with an advanced intelligence, and a bit of precognition, just feeling a little nervous made him activate the security measures. Soon, the extra clones, with defensive programming, and augmented bodies, would patrol the corridors, and flying unseen through a network of tunnels throughout rapture were something Cortana had built, something she called the sentinels. They were similar to the security drones of rapture, but had advanced shielding, an organic brain buried deep inside the electronic components, and much more powerful weaponry. Darien tried to relax, but couldn't get the feeling of impending doom out of his mind, so he decided he would switch to secondary protocol defenses, which was to begin launching the other space vessels into orbit, something he had intended on doing for some time, and those vessels would meet on the moon, to begin building a base. Darien was finally able to relax, as the fiery brandy rolled down his throat, and the engines of the ships lifted them from their cradles on utopia, and launched for the moon.

Back on the ship _Utopia_

Cortana had all systems prepped and ready, and had the food, clones, and armory fully stocked with plasmids, food, Adam capsules, eve capsules, various weaponry, and at least 12 copies of each person stored in their respective bays. Darien's distress beacon activated, telling her that he was slightly anxious, and with all his plasmids he could predict a catastrophe, and that such a catastrophe was immanent. She immediately began evac procedure, calling the various populaces' minds, and activating clones on the _Utopia,_ and eliminating all organic material left on Utopia. She knew when the second beacon went off, that Darien had initiated secondary protocol, sending the prototype fleets into space. She opened her com to three of these, fleet designated as Fleet Vendetta, and ships called _the Atla, the Mesa, _and _the Quarta. _There were several other fleets, but she was assigned to Fleet Vendetta, as that fleets goal was to meet, and possibly negotiate with, other sentient races. They were also the only ones designated to leave the galaxy, and were going to attempt to reach a different galaxy after their galaxy had been fully explored. It seemed like something that wouldn't happen for quite some time, and it probably wouldn't happen for quite some time, but Cortana had all the time in the world…

This is Fleet Vendetta, Command ship _Quarta_ requesting comm. Uplink to the _Utopia_, please respond.

This is the super carrier _Utopia_ ready to carry out its duty command.

Very good, nice to see you Cortana.

Likewise.

Alright, pleasantries aside, well see you in the Verona solar system, I hear there are some strange pinging from there.

Very good, meet you there… Jumping to slipspace after alignment in 3 minutes.

Clear skies, jumping in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

Cortana sighed as fleet Vendetta jumped for Verona Solar system, and had began prepping the engines to jump into slipspace towards the same target. Nothing interesting happened, all was basically routine, until the portal had opened, and she was moving into it, and was seconds away from it collapsing.

"Fleet vendetta, this is Utopia, we are under attack by an unknown organism, possible flood vectors. (Static) all missions and (static) return to base, I repeat (static) missions (static) base. Utopia is (static)"

Cortana cringed, yet could not disable the portal or the jump until they would reach the Verona system. She cursed the fact that they still hadn't discovered a way to turn while in slipspace. As the ship entered slipspace, the only thing that she could do was to send a single burst transmission, and in it she said that she could not change course, but the transporter pods were open, and she was accepting riders.

There was no response.

Cortana stared into the night sky, filled with fear and sadness, as her second home was being fought over. She felt… angry. And determined. If she could not jump out of slipspace, then she would go back to Utopia, and fight for the right to live at home. Cortana began making her way towards the transporter pad in the armory, which was hardwired to only teleport to a series of 7 pads, only one of which would take her to utopia, the others led to small rooms, where any organic material was removed and stored. Cortana came into the armory, and found everything she could need. She piled 2 crates of grenades, 4 crates of sentinels, 2 crates of rockets and launchers, several crates of ammo, 1 mjolner suit class 4, and a hell of a lot of other weaponry. She loaded everything onto a transporter about the size of a 4 pelicans welded together. It took her to the other side of the ship, and after five minutes traveling at the speed of about 400kph, where the docking bay was, and the largest transporter pad of all, and settled her next to one of the frigates. Most of the _Utopia_ was built under ground, but there was a fair amount, about 1-2% of it that existed in space. Considering that, Cortana was also extremely glad that the entire thing was basically built on the moon. In the moon more like, in fact, the _Utopia _**was** the moon. Cortana thought about all of this as she barded the frigate, stored the equipment, and set the pad to put her outside the moon. She activated every onboard droid, and set them into battle stations. She set the sentinels she picked up to search for any of the people programmed into her database, and to attempt to rescue them. If they couldn't, they were to upload them into the database, their current status, and then to activate their clone.

Then Cortana powered the ship up, and moved it through the transporter portal.

At first, the few astronomers that still had their eyes turned to the sky detected nothing, and then they saw…_Hope._ _Hope _had arrived, and was coming to save them.

Cortana slipped into the pelican that was nearest to her, and about 40-50 sentinels followed. She waited for the crates of ammo to finish being loaded, and was slightly surprised to see another contingent of sentinels loading a pelican with a portable manufacturing plant, something that made her consider the possible intelligence of the things she created. She dismissed the thought for later, and busied herself by powering up the pelican, and made like a tree to get the fuck out of there.

: Fire:  
: Ash:

: Magma:

:Death:

:We unleash you, and we claim our place in this galaxy, gods among all:

: We are:

Cortana grabbed the controls, attempting to stop the pelican from crashing into the docking bay floors of utopias main fishery. Her ship ended up tapping the ground, and then it nosedived, throwing everything inside of it everywhere. Cortana ended up blacking out for about a minute, while the sentinels exited the pelican and began their missions.

"What happened?"

Dwooo, beep whir shwang. Vwong ssssss vhwaoh.

"Yes I know I wet unconscious, but after that, how long have I been out anyway?"

Dweeep, vreeeep, shvwong.

"Five minutes? That's it? Alright, let's do this thing."

Cortana leapt from the pod, and grabbed the first weapon she saw in the cargo bay. It was a grav hammer, and with it she smashed open a door that had been welded shut, and stared at a sight she wished she would never have to see again. 4-5 kids were battling an army of combat forms, all of the combat forms looked fishlike, and appeared not to be taking much damage from the relentless onslaught of fire, telekinesis, electricity, and ice being shot at them. Cortana watched, in horror, as a single infection form leapt sky high, and landed directly on the face of the last kid. He screamed, and that seemed to wake Cortana up. Almost immediately she leapt into the fray, smashing any flood stupid enough to attack her, flaming down infection forms and combat forms alike. The 4 kids kept throwing volley of fire after volley of fire at the relentless tide of flood, and it began thinning out. The thinning came not from the kids, but from Cortana herself, as she kicked, punched, and crushed the various combat forms around her. To deal with the infection forms, she let out streams of ice, fire, and electricity with reckless abandon, downing capsules of eve to try and stabilize herself while pushing her body farther than it had gone ever before. There was a roar, and suddenly what had been hundreds of flood, what could be called a river, became an ocean. Cortana adrenaline pumped harder and faster, and one of the gauntlets of her suit broke trying to smash through the decaying body of an octopus. She screamed in pain as a shark bit her shoulder, and almost blacked out when she was sent flying by a puffer fish. She crashed into the wall, screaming as she fell from a 5 story height, directly on-top of a combat form crushing it. At any moment she expected to feel the sharp sting of one of the infection forms attempt to take her over, and convert her into a walking zombie. When none did, and she recorded the time as 15 minutes, she began to calm down, to breathe slowly and to look around. It was a mass of beige flesh, of decaying meat, of corpses that greeted her, and she saw that not one of the flood that had entered the room while she was there still lived. The four kids had been checking the flood for anything they could use, and had begun making their way towards her, the ghostly green armored hammer wielding titan. When she sat up, and injected the bio-foam into her armors slots a few minutes later, they could do nothing but stare in awe at the might that was her, even though she was missing an arm, half her armor was torn apart like tissue paper, her helmet was cracked, and more than 40 bones in her body, that she could tell, were broken.

And she felt fine.

She knew that she should be dead in a couple hours do to blood loss, but she also knew that there was a clone bay not 40 feet form where she sat, where she could empty her conscious into the machine there, and craft herself a new body, with all the augmentations that she had had before, plus any extras that she felt like attaching to herself. She scooped up a handful of dead infection forms, and carried them into the clone bay.

Inside the clone bay

Cortana sat on the table typing commands into the computer that would send more armor for herself, and some for each of the kids. She also put in a command for the sentinels to come cleanse the area of any infection form, and inserted the DNA probe into the lump of flesh she had acquired. It quivered for a second, before the screen began listing the effects of what it did, what could be spliced into a person, and what the effects of each splicing would be to her. She read it all, and selected a few traits, such as regeneration, expanded life, expanded intelligence, hive mind, phsyonics, and several others, and attached them to her new body. Then she uploaded herself into the computer, and inserted herself into the new body.

Her eyes opened and she drained the tube, a process she had done many times before, and then she reached out and began pulling on her armor. First things to come on were a pair of bio panties and a bio bra, each one made healing herself easier, and it was easier when she had them on, for her suit to regulate her temperature. Then she pulled a black shirt, one that was so tight that not even air came between her skin and it, and matching black pants. She stepped into a small box, which seemed to hold a black tar-like substance, and it fitted her with something similar to moccasins. With that she was able to pull her chest plate on, and her crotch plate, as well as the shoulder pads and arm armor. The leg armor came on immediately after, and just before the gauntlets and leg bottoms came on, went the gloves and boots. After her armor came on, she reached for a helmet, one that was extremely similar to the master chiefs helmet, only way more functionality, and slipped it on. It took her suit about 2 seconds to fully power up, and she smiled as the HUD powered on, and all systems were green. Now all she needed was a weapon. She hooked a neural interface into the nearest sentinel, and gave it the order to begin putting them onto each sentinel that was manufactured out of the pelican's portable factory. She also gave it orders to bring her a grav hammer, and a crate of fragmentation grenades. It came back a few seconds later, also with a shotgun, and handed her the hammer and shotgun. The crate of grenades dangled from a second sentinel, but a much more heavily armed one, and the first one went back to finish what she had said to do.

She stepped outside of the medical bay, while the four kids jogged to the pelicans for evac. She smiled as she entered the next room, and saw more flood. The cracked the crate open, and primed one grenade, before throwing it at the most concentrated mass in the room. From there, she dumped the grenades, and watched them roll into the mass of flood. She waited as the flood stepped on the grenades, and came at her, falling, tripping, and leaping, in an attempt to reach and kill her. When the nearest one was ten feet away, she pulled her shotgun and fired upon the nearest grenade causing it to explode, and starting a chain reaction of shrapnel, flying flood corpses, pieces of meat, and general mayhem.

It was glorious.

She stopped for a moment, and listened to something in her head. To the people watching her, and the sentinels, it seemed as though she fell to the ground, and began screaming. Inside it was worse.

:**EVERYTHING:**

:We are everything that ever was, that ever will be, and that is. You will not stand in our way, Cortana, and it is you who will die. We are eternal; your life is like that of the nearest krill. OURS!:

Cortana screamed as the voices flooded her mind, telling her to do things, yelling at her, screaming, whispering. It seemed to stretch on for an eternity, nearly driving her to madness, but then there was calm. She felt a great serenity wash over her, and she stood up to find herself in a meadow. She was surrounded by Spartans, ones wearing the helmet and cloak of the Spartans of Greece, all the way to the Spartans that had fought, lived, and died on and above Reach. The Master Chief stood there, and extended a hand.

Welcome to Sparta, sister, but we don't think you're done just yet. If you ever need to talk to us, just come back. Remember, we will always be with you…

Her body began convulsing, and she came back, the people around her screamed as the flood began slaughtering them. She just lay there, breathing, concentrating on the lights above as the flood began a dance of death and massacre, sending crimson blood to splash the walls, and bone fragment into crowds. They seemed to laugh with glee as they slaughtered the people, and they enjoyed it. A whisper came into her head, "watch sister, watch and see the souls of evil, the armies of Persia, those who came to slaughter us in the night. Watch them, and feel revenge.

The flood never knew what happened.

Cortana never realized what happened.

The people only saw it as a single person, but with a ghostly army behind them, and then they clashed with the flood. The flood were torn apart in a nanosecond, corpses burnt to ash, and as dead as possible. Not one of the flood could have survived in that onslaught.

Cortana's heart began to slow, and then she heard the alarm.

Darien had actived the self destruct of Utopia.

Cortana sprinted for the docking bay, the people around her ran too. The PA system blared, "They have me, I am gone, and everyone needs to get off Utopia, because it is lost. There is nothing we can do. The gate is breached, the enemy may enter. The gate is breached, we are doomed."

Cortanas blood chilled.

The pelicans came into view; the Sentinels began disassembling everything around them. Cortana leapt into the pelican, and the people made a mad dash to get on. Cortana shut the doors, and took off, leaving hundreds, if not thousands of people in the docking bay. She took scan of the docking bay, something that downloaded the people into it, which turned them all into corpses, sentinels included, and she sent the pelican in to the water, to breach the surface of the world, and to meet up with the frigate in orbit.

Back on the frigate

Cortana set the frigate to return to the dock with some precise jump coordinates, and disembarked to begin the process of cloning the people of utopia.


	6. hiatus

I apologize for not updating... Hectic time with my family, and a roadblock caused by a suggestion that made enough sense, but I cannot seem to figure out how to work it in. It seems like this story will go on hiatus until I can come back to it...

Again, I apologize for that.

~Wolfminmitar

~Daemonwelsh


End file.
